Numerology letter values

Pythagorean: order

A is 1, B is 2, and so on to I at 9. Then it starts again: J is 1, R is 9, S is 1, Z is 8. Nothing more complicated than counting through the alphabet in blocks of nine, which is why this is the version almost everyone uses.

Chaldean: sound

The Chaldean table groups letters by the vibration attributed to their sound rather than their place in the alphabet — which is why A, I, J, Q and Y all share the value 1 despite being scattered through the alphabet.

The 9 is missing entirely. In this system it was held to be sacred and kept out of the letter values, though it can still appear as the total of a name. That single difference means a name reducing to 9 in Chaldean got there by a very different route.

Which to use

Pythagorean is the Western default and the easier of the two to check by hand. Chaldean is usually presented as the older system and treated as more precise by its practitioners, at the cost of a table nobody can memorize. Neither is verifiable, so consistency matters more than the choice — running one name through both and picking the nicer answer is the one approach guaranteed to be meaningless.

Calculate a name in either system →

Letters with a special role in a name

Beyond the totals, numerologists single out a few letters. The cornerstone is the first letter of the first name, read as how you approach new situations. The capstone is the last letter of the first name, read as how you finish what you start. The first vowel is taken as a glimpse of your inner nature, a short version of the Soul Urge number.

The Y and W question

Y counts as a vowel when it sounds like one — in Lynn or Mary — and as a consonant when it does not, as in Yolanda. Some practitioners apply the same test to W in names like Llewellyn. It matters because the vowels make the Soul Urge and the consonants the Personality, so a single Y can move a number between the two.